Business Systems Books

The authors present a very well structured concept around the discovery of customer value, followed by various strategies to capture that value potential. Great balance between theory and case examples.

Solid book on CS- long read!
Many good points-
Wish there was a cliff notes version

This book provides comprehensive material on Relationship theory and how organizations can move from a product centered setup to a customer focused one. There are lots of very interesting examples. It is definitely worth a read for anyone interested in Customer Relationship management.

The book is voluminous and covers the concepts in about 500 pages. I felt though, that the same concepts were repeated over and over again many times. It could have been more concise to fit it in about half the number of pages.

Yet, if you read through the entire book patiently, you won't forget any of the key aspects of building a successful business that is oriented arounds its customers rather than just its products or services. You will learn how to manage your customers and the building blocks of of any relationship. I perform a Relationship manager's job in an organization that is already customer centric and does most of what the book recommends, and found this book to add very useful additional insights to what I am already doing in my work life.

Also, you may find that some of the material in the book is more relevant if read a few years ago. Today, many companies are already in the type of customer oriented setup with a Customer manager assigned and empowered to make all decisions, so its likely that, like myself, you may be in an organization that is already organized in a customer centric manner. In this case, you'll have to skip or skim through the chapters that talk a lot about how existing organizations can move from a product centric setup to a customer centric setup. In other words, I felt the book is not 100% current given where Corporate America is. Further, there is a heavy dominance of recommendations more suited for a retail or product based organizations rather than services oriented type of organizations.

Regardless, a must read and offers great value to anyone buying it, especially for fundamentals on Relationship theory and management.

This book fills in the empty space of academic books in CRM. Most of the publications and articles I've read deal with research on the subject and companies selling their programs. In this book Peppers and Rogers compiled a comprehensive text with theory, research and contributions from other authors that are a valuable tool for the under and graduate level.

This very extensive text on customer relationship management leaves nothing unsaid or unexplained. Authors and editors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers tackle the subject with admirable organization, clarity and depth. They define every important term and do not lose the reader in marketing jargon - a rare virtue in a book about marketing. The text, including contributions from other well-known experts in the field, propounds a well-developed theory of customer relationship management (CRM) and sets out numerous examples to illustrate, explain and clarify the theory. Useful as a handbook, textbook or reference manual, the book covers - among many other core subjects - customer identification and differentiation, customer feedback, an analysis of retailing and basic tools for CRM. We highly recommend this book to service-oriented managers and executives. To form profitable relationships with your customers, first get friendly with Peppers and Rogers.

This book is great! I would have never guessed that a book on organizing finances would be fun to read, but this one is! It is easy to follow and is presented in a way that makes it quite simple to customize your own systems. In addition to all the wonderful financial advice (some which I did not even realize that I needed to know!), there is plenty of advice on organizing other area's of your life. For example, dealing with non-financial paper and clutter like magazine articles and catalogs. My favorite is the "room-by-room" files. They work awesome!
Every young person or couple just starting out should have this book! I'll be giving it for bridal shower gifts from now on!

This is an excellent guide that offers practical solutions to get your finances organized and keep them that way. Debbie Stanley's shining personality stands by the reader throughout the entire book as she offers a myriad of solutions to today's financial challenges. Her focus is on creating an organized, efficient financial system that works for you rather than you working for your system. The author emphasizes that even financial items need homes in order to manage financial clutter. Debbie offers recommendations for setting up financial files, automatic bill payment, financial software, daily mail, paper flow systems, and yes, even shopping excursions! The concept of being "organized enough" is stressed throughout as a pleasant reminder to keep it simple. This book is loaded with helpful tips, visuals and resources to help you save money, time, and frustration by creating a customized, efficient personal finance system. It's a "must have" book if you are ready to organize your personal finances and keep them that way!

This book was very helpful. If you take it step by step as in the book you will be organized in no time at all. I love how it is written step by step. Worked great for me. Now I am ready to face 2007 financially organized.

Whether you have been managing your personal finances for years, or you have just left home and have no idea where to start when it comes to managing your finances, you will benefit from this book. Stanley's approach to teaching the reader how to manage their finances is fun, exciting and motivating. The ideas in this book are practical and easy to implement. They are easy-to-follow and are adaptable to various situations and varous personalities.

Because the books contains consise "To-Do lists" as well as flagged reminders of key organizing principles, it is easy to take the information from the book and apply it to each reader's own situation. Working as a professional organizer, I was able to utilize the information from the book to help my clients become less overwhelmed with all of their papers and stick to an organized bill paying system that works for them.

In this important work, Khurana focuses the spotlight on the high-risk dynamics of CEO recruiting - particularly in cases where a company has not been doing well, and its former CEO has been disposed of. He demonstrates that this drama is being played out with increasing frequency in the large corporations which play a major role in our economy.

He finds that a pattern has begun repeating itself in such situations: Boards of directors don't usually take action until a company situation has been deteriorating for a while, so even when they begin the recruiting process, they are already under pressure to take bold and decisive action. This impels them to begin by rejecting any current inside candidates who are felt to be part of the problem, thus incapable of breathing new life into the organization. Underlying this "explanation" is the fear that the press, investors, and the media might not applaud a less-than-spectacular candidate such as any merely competent insider. Such lack of enthusiasm by all these onlookers might well lead to further erosion of stock which has probably already suffered. Thus the directors embark on a quest for some outside candidate who might possess the magic powers to provide salvation. The rejection of inside candidates and the quest for some superstar who can pull a rabbit from the hat are, Khurana asserts, the first steps down a slippery slope that frequently end in tragedy. The book describes the descent and how it has and will affect American business.

This is a fine book that presents a number of fresh insights about a critical issue in the world of large corporations. It is written cogently, with erudition, by an author who is rightfully passionate about his subject. Of the hundreds of management titles published in recent years, this description wouldn't apply to more than a handful.

It is interesting to compare Khurana's findings with those described in the book, "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. Collins reports on a number of companies that outperformed their competitors by huge orders of magnitude. According to Collins the CEOs of these spectacularly performing companies (a) were, with one exception, recruited from within and (b) were definitely non-charismatic leaders, selected for their capabilities with no expectation that they would perform miracles or provide instant cures. These findings certainly lend support to Khurana's assertions. The fact that one of Collins "Good to Great" companies, Gillette, ended up as a Khurana case when its CEO was forced out of his position in 2000 suggests that any generalizations in this field must take into account the rapid changes in the world.

In a final chapter, Khurana attempts a description of some possible solutions to the problems he has identified. His main prescriptions are that the CEO job market be opened up and that some more professional recruiting and evaluation processes be created for CEOs. These are rather weak palliatives for the seemingly intractable trends Khurana has described. The book's strengths lie in its portrayal of the way the CEO labor market is operating, the insights into why it is working that way and its portrayal of implications for the future of large American corporations if the trends continue.

Moreover his findings raise two fundamental issues which, though clearly beyond the scope of this book, must be dealt with in any quest for amelioration.

First issue: When things are going well, boards of directors play very stereotypical and structured roles that rarely include in-depth managerial initiatives. The chances that a board of directors, could, once it becomes evident that a company needs new leadership, mobilize itself into an effective working group and then put in the time and energy to (1) decide why the company is in trouble (2) sketch some of the remedial actions that are needed to cure it (3) set out a rational professional search and bring in new CEO in circumstances in which he or she might succeed and (4) have the patience to permit a new CEO to effect a transformation, is virtually zero. Thus a realistic conclusion from the book's findings is that the chances of success in such a venture are so slight as to be not worthy of the attempt. And if that is the inescapable conclusion, then some solutions more drastic than Khurana's may be called for. One example might be consultants who are dedicated to filling in some sort of CEO role during a transitional year or two in such situations, working with the board to evolve a strategy. I am not recommending such a step - merely suggesting that some new thinking is required.

The second issue -- again assuming that the risks in CEO recruiting will continue to be unacceptably high -- concerns a board's responsibility for making certain that they are never forced to undertake the impossible search. Instead of focusing on what boards have to do to improve their techniques for replacing the CEO, it might be more useful to ask whether it shouldn't be a responsibility of boards to ensure this doesn't happen. What mechanisms need to be built in for boards to assess managerial performance on an ongoing basis and to take prompt action when performance is not satisfactory.

While these are important issues that need to be dealt with, I do not criticize Khurana for not dealing with them in his very fine book. He has done yeoman service in identifying the issues and, in that respect, has hit a bull's eye.

A brutally honest look at what is wrong with how CEOs are chosen in America today. I read an advance copy of this book and could not believe it was allowed to go to press. Dr. Khurana certainly has put his professional aspirations on the line to be so bold, but this is the kind of book that makes a difference in the world.

This book presents what I considered some amazing and enlightening information not normally available to ordinary people. We can read about the stupefying emoluments, titanic disasters, and spectacular firings of CEOs in the popular press, but it is hard to find out the inner workings of how these people got into these positions of influence to begin with. Many of the academic treatises on management I have read seem like distant observations from an ivory tower. Refreshingly, parts of this book sounded to me like the information came from furtive phone calls late at night.

Of course, part of the problem is that the foxes are already in charge of the chicken coop. I, too, would recommend this book to members of corporate boards responsible for the performance of top executives. There are plenty of brilliant executives who should be promoted based upon sound character and true leadership ability. Everyone knows that in many cases this is not happening, but Dr. Khurana has identified the defective process that underlies the problem. It is up to boards of directors to learn about and correct their mistakes.

The final page of the book uses an analogy from the Wizard of Oz about drawing back the curtain to shed light on the inner workings of power, and Dr. Khurana has done a good job of this. His book is to CEO succession as Sinclair Lewis' "The Jungle" was to the meat packing industry--it will turn your stomach and make you cry out for change if you read it.

The selection of a new CEO can be as mysterious as the election of a new Pope, the opacity raising questions about the efficiency and legitimacy of the decisions reached. Because external CEO searches are generally undertaken by companies in the throes of a real or perceived crisis, stakeholders hope the outside CEO will be their savior. Because single-handedly saving a troubled corporation is no ordinary job, boards bent on finding a corporate messiah are not interested in ordinary qualifications but a person who is thought to possess charisma. Enron's Skilling offers a dramatic and instructive illustration of the perils of charismatic corporate ladership. Corporations would do well to reconsider their models of leadership and ways of choosing leaders.

In the decade following McCoy's appointment as CEO, Chicago's Bank One Corporation acquired over 100 banks, moved from 37th largest bank to fourth, and stock increased 500%. In 1999 Bank One began to falter, the stock fell, integrating First Chicago was more difficult than expected, the conservative style clashed with the entrepreneurial culture and McCoy's management style, which was included in the Harvard Business School's required general management course, was seen to be a liability rather than an asset. A revolt gathered steam and a generous separation agreement was negotiated. Stock jumped 11% on the announcement but became volatile with media coverage of the high-profile search for the best person in the US to lead Bank One back to the top with the leadership as the overriding principle guiding the search. Dimon was top of the short list. "In late February, Dimon flew into Chicago to deliver a two-hour presentation to the Bank One search committee. By this time, he had decided he wanted the job. Dimon's presentation seemed to leave his audience breathless. He talked about his philosophy of management, covering such topics as his leadership style and the importance of clearly articulating to people their roles and responsibilities. He also spoke about the importance of instituting a more extensive stock-option plan to better align the incentives of the executives with those of the shareholders. Dimon's bluntness and self-confidence impressed the committee." He wasn't afraid to lead, he said all the right things, he had a plan, he was prepared to make the tough decisions that others wouldn't make. In one brief appearance that Dimon himself largely orchestrated he met Bank One's high standards of leadership. Dimon was appointed over insider Istock and stock soared 30%.

Bank One's CEO succession process followed a familiar script with little emphasis on the company's strategic position and whether the candidate's background was appropriate. If the new CEO is unable to deliver quickly, the wisdom of the selection is questioned. This is the first thread of irrational behavior in what should be a carefully considered process. The leadership school believes that CEOs play a critical role in a firm's performance, while the constraint school believes that internal and external constraints limit the CEO's ability to affect performance. A third school suggests that the pertinent question to answer is 'When does leadership matter?' rather than 'Does leadership matter?' as the leader's impact is highly case-sensitive. "As the Bank One story illustrates, however, it is not only the criteria directors use in choosing a new CEO that calls into question the efficiency and overall rationality of the external CEO market. So do many other features of the search itself." Not only was the initial boost to the stock price short lived, but the board was questioned on its control over the CEO after five directors, including the internal candidate for CEO, "volunteered" to retire from the board after five months. Whether the benefits would be worth the price agreed by the board would remain an open question for an unforeseeable length of time.

"How are we to account for these remarkable, ultimately disquieting features of the external CEO search: the overestimation of the CEO's role and the fixation on charisma; the somewhat Byzantine nature of the search process itself, simultaneously closed to many presumably qualified candidates and open to the influence of many external actors; and the questionable outcomes that this process often produces? This book is an attempt to answer this very question." Boards seriously underestimate the damage that outside succession entails and if the firm is already in trouble, hiring an outside CEO might threaten the survival of the organization itself. A remarkable feature of the Bank One search was that the board passed up an experienced, highly qualified executive who knew the company and its business well. The airplane interview technique in which the incumbent CEO conducts a surprise interview with successor candidates individually and asks who should lead the company assuming both are killed provides very interesting information about the chemistry of the group. Repeating the process three months later when candidates are better prepared but only the incumbent CEO is killed, provides further valuable information. All information is shared with those involved in the final decision. If the process is initiated early enough, the shortlisted candidates can be moved into testing situations that may help the final decision.

Kurana, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Business School wrote this book based on a study of hiring and firing of CEOs at over 850 of America's largest companies. Anyone who is involved in the selection process of a CEO would be wise to study his findings.

I really enjoyed parts of this book, but the broader points he was trying to make fell flat. The thesis, that we should be wary of charisma and value competency more, is welcome to most people-perhaps everyone sufficiently detached-and his anecdotes provide interesting and powerful support.

For example, as a former banker I appreciated the point he made that big NYC bankers tend to be investment bankers, which is different than commercial banking, which is different than retail banking. It may seem like inside baseball to outsiders, but that's exactly the point: if you don't know the difference, you shouldn't be a bank director. Thus my conclusion would be that instead of telling current board members to be less foolish, it would be more practical to focus on reforming the way board members are chosen. In my experience, most bank board members were absolutely incapable of judging competence on the essential technical issues to sound banking (eg, how credit quality, spread, and volume are related), and choosing board members based on some objective criteria would seem to advance the search for a good CEO better than telling the current board members to not fall for the next empty suit.

But more broadly, is the flawed method of picking a CEO worse than before? Khurana's own data suggests that new CEOs don't matter much, which mean they aren't worse either. And the issue of arbitrariness is somewhat overstated, compared to a platonic ideal that has never existed. Picking any manager, such as a head of IT, raises the same example of cliquish, suboptimal groupthink. The same could be said for how collectives choose politicians, pundits or professors. In the words of Flaubert, "our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this."

Lastly, he relies a lot on outdated sociological treatises (C Wright Mills, Weber, Whyte), and the idea of a WASP closed society. For example, at one point he mentions that in 1950 most CEOs where white, male, and Protestant, and the same is true today. But as pointed out it in Brook's Bobos in Paradise, you would be remiss not to mention the dramatic change over the past 50 years. For example, back then the Kennedy family were considered outside the establishment. Jews are now around 20% of Harvard's undergrad, and 13% of the Fortune 500 CEOs, even though 3% of the US population. The WASP elite have given way to a much more meritocratic elite, and the fact that it extends to the boardroom is partially a result of the new process for choosing CEOs. In predictable sociological fashion his straw man argument is the dopey institution-free economist, that conventional wisdom that Keynes and Galbraith effectively invoked, but which is now a tired parody of current economic thinking. In the end, there is nothing really deep here, just a fun book highlighting the current foibles of specific group of people trying to deal with incomplete information and coalition building.

Charisma and reputation have replaced management experience and industry expertise in the corner office. Certainly that's not news to anyone who has read the business press at any time in the past decade, but the trend is certainly important enough to warrant the comprehensive examination provided by Rakesh Kurana. Starting with an analysis of the increasing power of activist institutional investors, Kurana traces the process through which boards of directors have forsaken mature managers for media darlings in their CEO searches. In light of the spate of embarrassing and enraging CEO scandals, we from getAbstract recommend this book to all readers.

This book has changed my whole business perspective and my business in ways I can't even describe here. I just want to say one thing, we all need to be aware that we are all in the business of selling whether we like it or not. Even if you don't have a job, you will need to sell the feeling at some point in your life. Don't dare to look at this book and say. "This is not for me, I'm not a sells person", if so you are already out of business no matter which one is it.

Business Owner-D.Cruz

I generally have difficulty getting into self-help or any sort of instructional books. However, Sell the Feeling, was a fast and actually fun read. The narrative structure of the book makes it not only engaging, but also naturally creates a high level of retention for the reader. I would reccomend this book for anyone in the business world--not just to someone who works in 'sales.'

As I read this useful and fascinating book, I was struck by several things: 1) the authors - Larry Pinci and Phil Glosserman - truly understand the art and science of selling from the inside out; 2) they cleverly and very effectively impart their knowledge through an extended conversation between two fictional characters, a literary device I wasn't expecting to find in this type of book but one that makes the read entertaining and easy; and 3) they deliver important insights and practical solutions with stunning simplicity and clarity. Any business professional who has anything to do with selling anything - and that includes just about everyone - should read this book and celebrate its cogent advice. Scott Busby, Founder | CEO, The Busby Group

I expected a technical outline of ideas that I would study, underline, and work at. Instead, it turned out to be a story -- a novel that is so light and delightful that I didn't want to put it down. It did a great job teaching me powerful business growing techniques while keeping me thoroughly entertained. If you are serious about expanding your business, don't miss this one!

This book's approach to teaching is to walk you through the experiences, shortcomings, progress, mistakes and successes of a sympathetic character with whom it's easy to identify. It's easiest to learn by doing, and this book allows you to walk through the process with the main character. This book is a great, fast read, and has a lot of lessons to teach in an easy, comfortable manner. Highly recommended!

This book presents a solid foundation for what IBM is calling "Services Science" and SAP "Business Process Platforms."

The basic argument is that if you are thinking "outside-in" about creating a customer-centric business then you need to think about services. Customers buy services.

Making the linkage between services that customers (or employees) use and the business processes that companies actually automate using enterprise applications is the fundamental contribution of this book. The authors use numerous case studies to illustrate how services-centric business go about architecting their blueprints.

Highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in understand the architecture of a services driven business.

The authors have done a fantastic job of illustrating how to design and implement digital business processes in the post dot-com era. This is one of the first books that truly gets into the concept of multi-channel business process design.

The most useful part of this book was how it ties together the online digitial business strategy, composite business processes, and the emerging business process management platforms/systems areas. The book uses the concept of services to link the strategy side to the process side. This is emerging strategy being followed by SAP, Siebel, Peoplesoft, Oracle, IBM, HP and even Microsoft.

The other good aspect of this book are the variety of best-practice case studies that truly illustrate what business problems, web services and services oriented architecture is meant to support. The case studies on J.C. Penney, Eastman Chemical, Nike, Wal-Mart, GM, McDonalds, New York Times Digital, Georgia Pacific, IBM were quite interesting.

The audience for this book is defintely marketing, operations and IT managers who are trying to figure out what to do with their organization's different first generation portals. Most of the customer facing, employee facing and supplier facing portals built during the dot-com boom are out-dated and need to be completely overhauled. For those who are facing this problem, this book will be very useful.

Highly recommend this book. It is thought provoking and insightful.

Despite contrived terminology, such as "digitization", this book truly lives up to its title because the authors provide both a blueprint for services in today's economy, and a roadmap for making it happen. The authors stay focused on business instead of technology. More importantly, they show how to shed outmoded thinking about business processes and supporting systems, and highlights how you should be viewing the marriage of services and processes to be successful.

The essence of this book is in the authors' equation, Services Blueprint = Focal Point + Services + Processes + Applications. The ten core focal points given in this book clarify one or more critical success factors to any business, and the clear advice for executing to achieve objectives associated with focal points is invaluable.

I like the way the authors distill a set of complex, interrelated elements into a coherent approach. For example, they breakdown service blueprints into types (three major ones); provide execution methods that aligned to organizational goals, and reinforce these using case studies from well known corporations. In addition, the discussions of processes, application integration, and how to tie everything together into a coherent view and execution strategy is among the most realistic and clearly articulated I've come across. I also like the way the authors support Six Sigma in the design and implementation of processes. If you are not familiar with Six Sigma, the clear and succinct treatment in the book will provide everything you need to know to understand its value. Of course, it will not teach the associated techniques to the point where you can effectively apply them.

Overall, this book is cuts to the key issues and challenges to align a business to today's economy. The approach is not only sensible and realistic, but the only one I've come across that 'gets it'.

I bought this book after reading the Darwin Magazine excerpt and having the read the authors previous best seller "e-business: raodmap for sucess". This book is really very insightful about the changes talking place in the e-business and business process management space. The book is a very clear exposition about what is being termed BPMS.

Design of an process integration framework....The book is a must read if you are a consultant who is following some of the latest moves by SAP, Siebel, Oracle, Peoplesoft and others like Tibco. The book ties together rather nicely the business objectives with business processes and enterprise apps.

Design of self-service apps... The authors take an outside in (customer or employee) perspective to the design of business processes. The authors argue that customers interact with services rather than processes. For instance, you go to Amazon.com because they are the best at digitizing the book selling service and making it easy to use.

Design of business process management... The ability to translate services into underlying business processes is the critical aspect of next generation self-service applications. The authors systematically illustrate the different types of BPM platforms that are emerging in SCM, CRM, PLM and Spend Management.

In sum, this book is worth reading for consultants, MBA students and others interested in knowing where e-business is headed. The authors have done a fantastic job of synthesizing the fragmented bodies of information and presenting a framework that ties everything together.

This was an interesting book to be sure. However, as I read the book, I felt like I'd read it before from the continued use of tired buzzwords such as "digitization." Enough on DIGITIZATION! I enjoyed the process templates provided by the authors, but they clearly do not understand some of the foundational technology concepts they mentioned, such as Web Services and Services Oriented Architectures (SOA). The Authors equated application servers with SOA, which is at best a massive oversimplication, and at worst, innacurate. This led me to believe that the authors are buzzword compliant but do not really understand Web Services. Also, reducing the entire world to PORTALS as the ultimate killer app is also a massive oversimplication as well. Portals are mainstream technology now and to be honest not that exciting anymore. Everyone offers it or uses it one way or another.

So, this book started out with a good premise but didn't deliver in the end. The process templates are good baselines for process understanding for those unfamiliar with business processes. This is a nice try by the authors, but I felt a little bit shortchanged by the book...

This book has been a valuable tool in both revising for 70-400 SCOM exam and maintaining my SCOM infrastructure. All levels of complexities are covered from single server deployments to huge scalable solutions.

It contains information on all areas of SCOM and general network administration, as well as helpful weblinks every few pages to internet resources on the subject. In most examples this book will walk you through the GUI for completing a task, and will cap it off nicely with a powershell cmdlet for those of you who like to streamline the power of two great products.

The only negative I've found with SCOM Unleashed is a couple grammatical errors, but I could not take a star off for this! A 5-Star book for a 5-star application. Suitable for those of you just starting with SCOM or already serious knee deep in alerts from every area of your network.

Thanks for another great book.

I have been working on a project at work for months now involving System Center Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM) and I purchased this book in hopes that it would fill in some gaps from Microsoft's documentation. It has done so marvelously. This book has solved a lot of minor issues. It is clearly written, has good examples to follow and has a lot of information. I recommend anyone working with the software to pick up a copy (everyone on my project has)

Really Really Really it was great book
You can learn everything
Book includes real world experiences,tips and trics
Absolutely positive

Thanks So Much Authors

This book is REALLY big. And for the beginner to intermediate Operations Manager administrator, that is a good thing. Clearly this is the book by which all other Operations Manager 2007 books should be measured. I'd say this one compares quite favorably to the other option on the market

Unleashed is infrastructure focused, and delivers great process-related info for not only design, planning and implementation, but more common administrative scenarios than one can count - moving databases, changing accounts, tuning your environment - it's all in there. And while I wouldn't expect many to read this book cover to cover, I think you could reference it regularly in your daily life as an Opsgmr admin for a long time and never look at the same page twice.

From a planning perspective, I think the team did a good job overall providing providing some insight into the decision process when mapping out your Opsmgr infrastructure plan. The ACS chapter in particular had excellent guidance for getting ACS running, and then tweaking the ACS reports to your liking.

As a testament to the size of Operations Manager as a product, the authors make copius references to community sources for scripts and information (kudos to the team for recognizing the community effort). But you'll also find quite a bit of that community data on the very handy CD accompanying the book.

And already in the book, I can see many SP1 changes that didn't make this 1st version due to lead time in editing cycles at the publisher, which is totally necessary. To that end, a 2nd edition is probably in the works, which will likely include many new tricks from recent months and some yet to be discovered.

I think there is something for everybody in Operations Manager Unleashed, and I encourage all Operations Manager administrators to keep one on the shelf for a rainy day.

Haven't yet ordered your copy? Amazon has great pricing and fast shipping on Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed!System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed

This is the most comprehensive OpsMgr book on the market. This book contains more real world information than the Microsoft white papers and runs circles around the Mastering Operations Manager offering.

Operations Manager Unleashed offers excellent guidance for planning your deployment including database sizing tips. In addition topics such as deployment and operations are thoroughly covered. Insight on management pack tuning, step by step guides on alerting and some of the best advice on the ACS feature are included. You will have more than enough information at your fingertips to get the most out of your OpsMgr investment. Think of this book like the Pocket Consultant series that Microsoft has for Exchange, Windows etc: it's not meant to be read cover to cover, but will provide you with advice at the right time.

In short if you have already invested thousands of dollars in System Center Operations Manager, spend the extra $40 and get the best available guide for this product. (Strange that Microsoft Press doesn't have a admin companion for OpsMgr)

- Are you a sales person looking to achieve sales success?
- Are you interested in selling to big time, high paying executives?
- Are you afraid to approach a CEO, COO or VP because you feel imitated?
- Are you looking for a step-by-step system to increase your sales by selling to executives?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you! Get it, read it and start applying Sam' system today!

Zev Saftlas, Author of Motivation That Works: How to Get Motivated and Stay Motivated &
Founder of www.CoachingWithResults.com

IT solutions are a major change for an organization and impact everyone. CIO's, CFO's, CEO's and other C's initiate, influence and approve these decisions. Take Me To Your Leader$ stepped me through an effective process of establishing useful relationships with these executives. Robert W. Johnson, VP and General Manager, North America Sales

Confidence is what makes salespeople great and Sam's trinity concept is the best method I've seen to get it. Sam explains how to overcome the fear of networking and the fear of asking for critical information to win orders. Greg Stover, VP Sales

Take Me To Your Leader$ is filled with great ideas. Sam's delivery is done in a way that kept my people and me involved and interested. He has a definite flair for presenting sales concepts and my people are a tough group to please, congratulations. Rick Finkbeiner, Senior Vice President

Sam reminded me that getting to the top is not enough to keep us there. Take Me to Your Leader$ shows how to keep these relationships alive and keep us the preferred supplier. Rod Bond, President

A family (divorce) mediator, I encounter many women who are painfully unprepared for the range and scope of divorce. This book is an excellent prep course and/or wake up call. It goes on my "recommended reading" list.

is Marilyn Barrett. She has so much valuable information to give, and she does it in such an easy way to understand.

Legalistics, to me, always had sort of a frightening tinge, because I thought I wouldn't be able to absorb everything, and therefore I'd get screwed somewhere. But Marilyn has made the most complicated problems easy, and then she gives you examples that are also simple to identify with -- so I was quite able to follow all her practical suggestions.

This book is for all women -- because all of us will find ourselves in at least one of the situations in her book before too long. I'm a small business owner, plus married for a second time, plus I took care of my mother during a long-term illness until she died recently. Marilyn's book brings up all of these aspects of living, offers solutions to problems I didn't even know I'd encounter, and is a book I'll keep on my shelf as a reference every time I have a legal-type question.

Thanks for writing it, it was great. Jennie

This book is not only informative to women, believe me. I picked up my wife's copy, more to see what she'd be doing to me after our next argument, and was totally unable to put it down. My wife was quite surprised to find me still reading it the next AM. I think the information MS. Barrett provides is applicable to all sorts of legal, or potentially tricky, legal situations, and NOT all are gender-related. Although I'm in a good marriage now, (I think), I wish I had known some of the tips she's offering TWO wives ago!

Sincerely, Ed Philhower, Los Angeles, CA.

Here is a book which should be a trusted partner when you have to make decisions which affect your life and security. This book gives you the tools necessary to step back and analyze the pros and cons of situations with much more than the usual emotionally-based outlook. Throughout her book, Marilyn Barrett stresses the joy of taking care of yourself will be worth the extra effort in the beginning of any new venture, be it in business or relationship.

This is a great book! Being a young, modern and relatively "hip" married woman (one who now co-ownes a business with her husband), I decided it was time to educate myself about all the legal stuff I'd been ignoring for years. I was especially intrigued by the author's approach to the legal aspects of marriage/children, property and taxes. These were topics I would not typically view in a "legal" light (hey, my husband handles the legal stuff), and I would certainly never have considered myself at legal risk. Reading this book really opened my eyes about where I stand as far as the law is concerned - Whaddyaknow, I'm considered a responsible, accountable adult! While this may seem like a no-brainer, the stories and information in this book really brought it home that I had better step up and take responsibility for myself. Thanks to this book I now have a clear understanding of the potential legal and financial hazards to which I may be exposed, and I also have the tools to avoid those dangers and make sound decisions that will protect my family from legal and/or financial peril. This is a truly informative and helpful book.

If you are considering whether or not to buy this book- just do it!!! Its easy to read. It presents ideas using multiple methods- tables, visual maps, stories, interviews, explanations and so on. A nice blend of practical and theoretical. Always thought provoking- a good book to continually go back to re-read sections as the need arises. Very very well researched.

As CEO Coach, Poet and author of a book that helps leaders unleash their genius and the genius of their teams and coroprations, I find this book very helpful. It breaks down what is often an intutive process that great leaders unconsciously use. Read this one. Paul David Walker Unleashing Genius: Leading Yourself, Teams and Corporations

A clear and concise view about leadership. A scientist who dares to incorporate spirtuality in his findings. It builds bridges between the businese world and the spiritual world. This is the way of the future and gives you the possibilty of really understanding the way to enrich your life in a corporate jungle. Every one, especially leaders should read this book.

Having completed my own reading of "Theory U" by Easter '08, I gladly lent it to my boss 'three floors' above myself. I now understand why a professor of management in DK last year claimed this book the most important book of leadership in this decade.

To a non-professional like myself, the completeness of the social theory of the U field seems to be somewhat comparable to Darwin's theory of Evolution, Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics, or Einstein's theory of general relativity just to mention some well know (by name :). The common characteristics that I have in mind is the connection of studies by different scientists, explaining all earlier observations in one whole theory and bringing our understanding to a higher level.

Once having understood Scharmer's numerous new ideas of social technology, I realized that for many modern (Western?) companies, mastering the difficulties of empathy is one important next step towards true innovation. That is innovation comprehended as creating what is needed, which is not necessarily what is wanted.

This book applies to managers, but not being a manager myself I still had more benefit from this treasury of thaughts than from many other books that I've ever read.

Leading is not just a question of management. It is also a question of leading your life in the direction, which is meant for you. You find that direction by listening to and acting from the source of your true self that needs to develop. Your motivation to do so is the wonderful idea that what is truly good for you is good for your local environment, for your society, and for the world.

I whish you a pleasant journey through the U field.

I was at a conference where Otto spoke just a few weeks ago and hearing him speak about Theory U and seeing his passion for the field was inspiring. I would say that this was not a book that I read, I studied it. Presence was an extraordinary conversation and this work helped me understand the depth and the power of the U framework in creating our future drawn from insights from the future.

This is not one of those fad books or consumer business books based on here is what I did so you should do it to. Understanding the U process is a journey and not something you read and go "do". I have a lot of learning and trying to do to start to realize the power of this framework. And there in lies the beauty of this work. I can revisit over and over again and I will never stop learning from the nuances contained within the book.

I highly recommend this book and Otto's other works if you are looking to help create sustainable changes in our world.

Fantastic book. I have owned this book since 1974 and I love it. The author's approach to problem solving is just as inventive today as it was then. The book is a guide to using your creativity to think out of the box and arrive at unexpected solutions and goals.

I first found this book in 1974. I still have it. This book approaches problem solving and personal values within the framework of a travel guide. How do you get from HERE to THERE?

Well, how do you get to New York from Los Angeles? How do you determine that New York is even where you want to go in the first place?

Simple, without TELLING you what to decide, it SHOWS you how to decide for yourself.

I carry this one in the sachel that I bring with me everywhere- I have done so for years now. At the movies, at the restaurant, at work... I always have it. Every time I am totally without any solution to an engineering problem, I turn to it. It has yet to let me down.

I purchased this book in the early nineties because it was a required book for a design methods 101 class within a four-year design program. It would have been worth my while to have read it in it's entirety then but, unfortunately, I failed to do so until years after I had received my degree. Having done so earlier may have saved me years of frustration of not fully understanding creative idea generation and development, and consequently, not realizing I was working with and for people who fostered, out of the same ignorance of the creative problem solving process, a non-creative work environment. I have since read The Universal Traveler many times as it has become a major source in my own intellectual inquiry into the psychology of creative problem solving. This is a must read for anyone who values creative thought and who desires the freedom only process awareness can bring. Seperate yourself from the pretenders.

Being Don Koberg, the author of The Universal Traveler now in it's just released Thirtieth Anniversay Classic Edition, I can assure anyone interested in buying this book that Jim Bagnall is not the author but rather my associate and soley responsible for the graphics, not the text, of this and other editions wandering about during the past three decades.